Crashing
by zukoshotpants
Summary: Zuko's just been accepted into the group. This doesn't sit well with Katara, and as she storms around on the shore convincing herself that she hates him and doesn't want to kiss him, not even a little bit, Zuko comes to confront her. Strange and sexy events follow. Rated M for you know what.


A/N: This was written for a friend, who wanted to see some good ol' fashioned Zutara angry smut. So here it is! In this one shot, Katara will storm about angrily, confront Zuko angrily, and then go about some other kinds of business in a similar angry fashion.

* * *

There was a mist in the air that day, a great mist rolling in off the sea. Sokka claimed it was southern winds, but that was ridiculous, they were too far away from all that for the wind to be misting up on the shores of the Fire Nation; and besides, they weren't facing south, not at all. The way he'd said it was half insistent and half wistful, as if he knew there wasn't any way for the southern wind to reach so far, but in a way which Katara could tell that he wanted it to be that way anyway.

Katara hated the Fire Nation.

Innocuous as the grass was, it felt like razors scraping against her legs, calm as the wind may have been, it felt blistering, boiling, unwelcoming. The sea, which Katara had loved, lapped against the shore like some dark pit, velvety and black and deadly. She crossed her legs on the grass and looked out at that sea, remembering a time when all she knew was the bitter cold of her home, of white snow and the gentle words of her parents.

The warmth of the campsite had left her entirely.

It baffled her how quickly, how suddenly, and how easily the whole group had fallen into Zuko's hands. Sokka was chattering about how awesome firebending was, how cool it looked when he did that, how impressed he was that he'd done so much for them, when all Katara could think of was the rage in his eyes as he'd told her he'd changed. It was terrible. Her fists curled in the grass, the dry and brittle leaves crunching between her fingers. She remembered Zuko in the crystal caves, how stoic he seemed, how firmly set he seemed in his anger, how steady and resolved he was. _I'm free to choose my own destiny_, he'd said, so seriously, eyes unblinking, unmoving in the light.

But when she'd touched his face, she felt him break apart. She felt him shatter. She felt him scream, even though his face stayed still, even though his eyes stayed on her, barely wavering. Just wavering enough.

She wanted to kiss him.

Thankfully, _thank spirits_, she didn't. Aang had crashed through the ceiling, and she'd left with him, and moments later, Zuko betrayed her.

She hated him.

Frustrated, Katara stood up and started pacing, hating the way the dry grass crunched beneath her feet, hating the way the mist swam between her fingers, hated the way her friends sat with him, talked to him, laughed with him as if he'd been with them the entire time. It was awful. It felt like betrayal, betrayal of the worst sort. So she'd stormed away, so far away that she couldn't hear them or him, nearly to the edge of where the grass met the sea. She was always running off to the sea, it seemed. _Makes sense_.

She hated Zuko.

But he was, undeniably, one of the most attractive boys Katara had ever met. She hated him for that, too, because it seemed like an easy thing to hate him for. It wasn't fair the way he made her skin jump just by looking at her, it wasn't fair the way he stood so close to her in those caves, it wasn't fair the way _he moved or smelled or...did anything_.

She didn't notice when the talking died down, and she didn't notice the footsteps approaching her, not until her name rasped out into the air, scratched and quiet and just a little bit sad. "Katara."

Feeling her muscles tighten, Katara didn't turn around. "Zuko."

"What are you doing?"

"What are _you_ doing?" she asked, her voice riddled with accusation, her hair whipping through the air as she spun around to face him. "I don't want to talk to you."

"I have to ask you something," he said, still steady, still stoic, still Zuko. His hair had grown long, and it hung over his eyes, just barely hiding them in the night. "About Ba Sing Se."

Katara looked at him for a second, before shaking her head and letting out a frustrated exhale. She kept pacing, and made sure to knock into his shoulder as she passed him. Through the corner of her eye, she saw him watching her. "I'm not going to talk to you about Ba Sing Se."

"Were you really going to heal it?"

The question unfurled into the mist before either Katara or Zuko could realize it had; there was something about the way Zuko took a step back that made it seem like he hadn't meant to ask that at all, not just yet. Katara turned her head to look at him, and saw that his face had turned a little red.

"What?"

"You know," he said, his voice a little blunt. It was obvious he hadn't meant to reach this point in the conversation yet. "Were you going to use your water, or whatever...on me?"

She was. She was going to, she would have. Then, she wondered, who would stand before her? Would it be Zuko, the traitor, or Zuko, the healed?

"No," she lied. "I wasn't."

Zuko tightened, clenched his jaw, swallowed. "I see."

"Good thing I didn't waste it on you," Katara continued, "or your crazy sister would have _killed _Aang."

It seemed as if he didn't know quite how to respond to that. If anything, he only got more angry, and silently so. Katara hated him, oh how she hated him. She hated the way he stood, like he didn't know where he should be standing. She hated the way his hair hung over his eyes, she hated the way his arms crossed across his chest, the way he huffed and puffed like some broken old fireplace.

She hated that she still wanted to kiss him. Even if just a little bit.

Even if just overwhelmingly, she wanted to kiss him.

"Look, I'm sorry," he said, walking behind her as she stormed away, desperate to get away from him, because he was Zuko, because Zuko was the chaser and she was the escaper, because Zuko was the prince and she was the peasant, because he said he was on her side and she didn't want to believe him because she didn't know what she'd feel if he was telling the truth. "I want to make it up to you."

"Why?" Katara snapped, angry that there was no way her words could match the unfairness of how she felt.

"Because I want you to like me?" Zuko said, his voice rising. "Is it that hard of a concept?"

Katara couldn't believe it. Hundreds, thousands of furious words poured through her head, but all she could do was stare at him.

"Why?" she blurted, crossing and uncrossing her arms and crossing them a little too firmly again. "Why?"

"Everyone else trusts me," Zuko yelled, throwing his arms to the side. Anger flared in his eyes again, but his motions were still reserved, restrained. "But you're being so stubborn about it!"

"You've given me no reason to trust you," Katara hissed, stomping up to him so her nose was pushed up in his face. "And I don't expect you ever will."

She turned around, but Zuko grabbed onto her arm. "Wait," he said, still angrily, "wait." Anger of the worst sort boiled through Katara's veins, thundering, raging. How dare he, she thought bitterly, how dare he renounce his past and act like nothing was weird, like everything was the way it should be, like he was the greatest person to have ever graced our group with his being?

She turned around sharply, forcing her arm out of his strong grip. The friction of the release made her skin burn, which infuriated her further.

"You were," Zuko said, once she didn't move. "You were going to heal it. I know you were. Why?"

"I wasn't," she insisted loudly. Zuko opened his mouth again, but the sight of that face, of those piercing eyes- the one wide, angry, upset, the other narrowed, seething, always seething- it angered her so much, she raised her right arm and slapped him, hard.

"How dare you," she spat, watching him recoil, watching him bring a hand to his face, watching those eyes turn on her in incredulity. "How dare you suggest I'd use something so precious as that on someone like you!"

"I'm glad you didn't," Zuko spat back, his fingers just barely brushing the space of skin where his scar started. "I don't need your pity."

"Pity?" Katara allowed him a hollow laugh, put her hands on her hips. "You think I _pity_ you? That's hilarious. Really hilarious."

"That's not what I meant."

"Sure sounded like it."

"Look, I just came to apologize," Zuko scowled. The mark where Katara had stuck him was started to turn red, and he didn't look none too happy about it. "And you're not ready, or whatever, then I don't really care."

"You're such a liar," Katara challenged, her heart pounding at an abnormally fast rate. Zuko's scowl deepened, and he stared in her eyes with enough intensity to make her knees give out right from under her. But she stood, she stared, and she made sure he knew that she was just the same Katara he'd always known, a challenger, an enemy. Not a friend, not a girl, and _definitely _not a girl who still wanted to kiss him, just for the sake of feeling such heat. Furiously, Katara built her resolve. _I don't want to kiss him. I don't. I hate him. I hate Zuko He's my enemy, and I am his. _She challenged him again. "Just when are you going to make your move, huh? When are you going to make off with Aang this time?"

Zuko sighed heavily. "Funny you should mention it, I was thinking I'd do it right after breakfast tomorrow." He rolled his eyes.

Katara lunged at him, prepared to slap him again, but he caught her wrists, eyes widening as her fingers clawed for his face.

"You think that's..._funny_?" she panted with effort, infuriated. "Do you think this is all a _joke_?"

"Of course not," he said, holding her fast. "I'm _sorry. _Just tell me how I can make it up to you. I want to."

"You can't," she said, although there was something about the way Zuko was holding her wrists that made her stomach flip, something about his heat that made her want to melt, if only just a little. She hated him for it. "I hate you. I hate you, Zuko, I hat..."

The end of her sentence was swallowed abruptly when Zuko, without warning, kissed her.

Hard.

He let go of her wrists as if to say _run then, go, I dare you_. But she didn't. Instead, she kissed him back, hardly daring to believe what she was doing. _What AM I doing? _she thought, but all her thoughts of doubts were quickly erased when Zuko grabbed the back of her head and pushed her closer. Blindly, Katara grappled with his lips, so angry but so full of something wild, something untapped and undiscovered.

"I see," she said against him, refusing to fall for the way his hands started to fist in her hair, the way he started to gasp against her mouth. "That's what you wanted, isn't it?"

"Shut up," he muttered, pulling her closer. "Just shut up."

"You'd like that," Katara said, finding her own fingers tangling in his hair. She hated him, she hated the way he smelled like musk, hated the way she needed to kiss him, just once more, just another and another and another.

"Damnit," Zuko said, his voice barely audible, his hands gripping Katara like steel. She kissed him like it was a battle, like they were fighting for each other's teeth, like they were playing to see who could tear the other's skin off first. With her hands deep in his skin, Katara could feel his blood thundering through his veins, could feel every inch of his wanting and every inch of his desire. She pushed him against the nearest tree, she made sure to _slam _him there just so he'd know she still hated him. But when she pushed her hips into his, and when she pulled at his lips with hers, she knew he could tell the truth of her feelings.

"I hate you, you know," she murmured, just before he opened her teeth with his tongue. He kissed her as if to say _yeah, sure_, and dug his fingers into the flesh of her hips. And her hips started to move, they started to grind into his. She couldn't mask the groan that escaped her lips as he moved back against her, breath hissing into her ear.

"Yeah, I know," Zuko murmured back, biting at her lip. "Prove it."

In one swift motion, he reversed their positions and stood so that he hovered over her, nearly pinning her to the bark of the tree, his lips still firmly planted against hers. He pushed at her, and Katara pulled at him, wanting him because she hated him, no, not because she hated him, because he was _Zuko _and his tongue was in her mouth and his hands were on her, all over her. He pushed right against her, his breath lingering in her mouth. Katara gasped.

"Zuko," she whispered, hanging onto his kiss with her everything.

"Yes?" he whispered back, his fingers trailing down her stomach. Katara just moaned, quietly, but enough for him to know that she didn't hate him, not really. Needing him closer, she hitched a leg over his back, and he held it there just under her knee, his thumb caressing her skin, his heat searing. And when his other hand slipped into her skirt, when it came between her legs, Katara buckled. To keep her standing, Zuko pushed her into the tree with his body, seared her there with his kisses, with his tongue and his fingertips. Those fingertips slid between Katara's legs, and started to move in little circles, slowly, painfully slowly. Katara bucked her hips forward, wanting more of it, but Zuko pulled back, gave her a smirk.

"Well," he said in a low voice, hovering over her, "aren't you bad, Katara."

"Shut up," she said, wanting nothing more than his mouth. "And kiss me."

Zuko obliged.

Hands tangled in his hair, Katara barely noticed when he moved her away from the tree, so she was bound in nothing by his arms. She bit at his lips so he would know she was still mad, still furious with him, she kissed him with all the ferocity she could muster. And Zuko gave it all right back, without hesitation. He was much, much better at this than she was, that much was clear, but she'd spent enough time with Jet in his treehouse to understand what Zuko wanted. She could hear the waves crashing against the sea, just as she could feel her own heart crashing against her ribcage, everything inside of her crashing as Zuko, her enemy, Zuko, the boy who betrayed her, Zuko, the boy she'd run from and fought with kissed her so passionately in the dark.

They fell to the ground, still in the fervor of desire, grappling with each other's bodies in the mist. Katara could hardly believe what she was doing, she could hardly believe that they were Zuko's hands kneading her breasts, Zuko's lips trailing down her neck and lingering over her collarbone, Zuko who was making her feel so..._so good_.

Now positioned on top of him, Katara straddled his hips, and felt as he pulsed against her, speaking to her in gasps. She kissed him, because she hated him, because she wanted him to know what she was capable off, she kissed him because she wanted to know why she wanted him so badly. Not quietly, Zuko groaned into the air, his face pale in the darkness, his body radiating more heat than Katara thought possible. She could feel him, of course, that part of him that was full of the most heat; she could feel the way it pushed against the innermost part of her thighs, she could feel his every shudder when her hands came even close to it, she could see the desperation in his his eyes.

"Damnit, Katara," he said, his hand closing quickly around her wrist. He tried to shove it down to where he wanted it, right in that center of heat, but Katara resisted. Instead, she smirked at him, making sure to let her lips linger just over the tip of his nose. Zuko panted with effort. "Damnit," he said again, his voice cracked.

"What do you want?" Katara purred, her fingers just barely reaching down into his pants. "Was it me? Is that why you came back? You're rotten."

He didn't say anything, but instead gripped her wrist harder, only grunting. This time, Katara obliged him, and let him push her hand down into his pants. He made to say something, but Katara told him _shhh_, and reached for her water pouch with her other hand, just to wet her fingers. At first, she worked on him slowly, enjoying the stunned and dazed look on his face, enjoying the sound of breath hissing through his teeth. Zuko, crown prince of the Fire Nation, laid between her knees, grappling with her breasts, swearing against her mouth.

"So tell me," Katara whispered in his ear, gripping him hard, "how does it feel?"

"Shut up," he hissed, his voice strained. "Just..."

"_Tell me_," she said again, this time moving her body up his in time with her hand.

"Good," he relented with a mutter, "so good, Katara."

"That's exactly what I thought," Katara said, kissing him firmly.

For a while she remained like that, just straddled over his hips, her left palm planted firmly on the ground. With her other hand she stroked him, but eventually, she started to get tired. Inevitably, she began to slow down, and when she did, Zuko came back down to his senses, visibly regaining a sense of the world. With a flash of gold, he opened his eyes and looked at her, something like a challenge in them behind all that lust.

Seizing her by the waist, Zuko shifted his weight so she flipped underneath him, pinned to the ground by his heat. He kissed her so hard, she felt like she would be turned to ash. With his lips trailing down her neck, Zuko undid the knot on her top and stripped it completely away, before he went to work on her wrappings. Quickly, he gave her a look, and it gave Katara a moment of pause. _Asking permission. He's asking permission._

"Just do it, you idiot," Katara growled, lifting her back up from the ground so Zuko could reach them, the part where it would all come undone. Katara supposed thats where she was just then, at the place where she would come undone. The mist in the air seemed to swallow her, it filled with every gasp, and as her breasts became exposed to the air, they became more sensitive. With urgency he kissed her, holding her voraciously in his hands, his kisses slowly migrating towards her breasts. Gasping, Katara held him there, thinking of how close her friends were at camp, thinking how foolish it was for her to have fallen so quickly.

_No_, she thought, resolved, bucking her hips against Zuko's. _I am not fallen, I am a fighter_. Except this time, blows were not dealt in fire and water it seemed, but in pulls of the skin and pounding of hearts, so Katara fought with her hands and her tongue, she fought for Zuko's lips. She moaned, loudly. They grappled with each other there on the ground for ages, fighting until all of their clothes lay in heaps around them, until Zuko bit into Katara's shoulder and pushed into her. Katara screamed, and Zuko slapped a hand over her mouth.

"_Shhh_," he hissed, face contorted as his hips jolted into hers a second time. "Don't want anyone to hear you."

"Shut up then," Katara said with a great deal of effort, as she found it harder to form coherent words. "And just fu..."

This time, it was Zuko who groaned too loudly, and Katara put _her _hand over his mouth. And like that, with hands fisted in each other's mouths, they moved together in silence. As Katara felt herself grow more and more desperate for Zuko's body she found it harder to keep quiet. She bit into his hand, she cried for him, she felt her whole body rock under his, rising and building towards something magnificent.

"You," Zuko managed to say, "dirty...little...peasant..."

Katara bit down on his hand, hard, and nearly screamed when he pulled it away.

"Zuko," she whimpered, her senses starting to cloud. "Zuko, please..."

He grunted in response, sweat beading on his forehead. His fingers dug into her shoulders, nearly painful. But Katara continued to feel herself rise, continued to feel herself build with pleasure as Zuko moved in and out of her, more and more quickly.

"Quiet," he warned her, his voice right in her ear. It thrilled her to have him so close. It was _exhilarating_, in the way that things which are often looked down upon are also exhilarating, in the way that having the boy you hated turn into the boy between your legs was exhilarating. And he grew more and more frustrated, it seemed, as if he were holding back some great tidal wave. Katara wanted it to crash, she wanted his tidal wave to crash all over her, and she wanted to crash into him. Groaning steadily into her shoulder, Zuko's hand raked in the grass. She couldn't take much longer, she knew. _One more, one more, one more..._

He must have seen it in her eyes before she felt it happen, because he clamped a hand over her mouth again, looking at her wildly. She shuddered, she felt like she was breaking, she felt like she was _crashing_, she was crashing so wildly, so fiercely, it was a wonder Zuko was able to hold her to the ground at all.

"Spirits," he whispered, watching her come down. "_Spirits, Katara."_

Utterly spent, Katara looked up at him. His eyes, golden and dilated with lust, looked down at her. "Don't you have something to finish?" she asked. She swore she saw a smirk before he buried his head in her shoulder again.

_Crash_, she thought to herself as Zuko pushed into her again, _crash into me._

It didn't take him long. "You're bad," Katara murmured into his ear as he moved into her, over and over again. "_Do it."_

His mouth shot open, and his teeth scraped against her skin. To keep him steady, Katara tightened her grip around his back, her hands sweeping over it's broad surface, feeling the muscles spasm beneath her fingers. She pulled him back down to her, yearning for the heat of his flesh after the exposure of hers to the night air. Zuko cried, he arched, he crashed, he collapsed.

He panted.

After taking a second to recover, Zuko pulled back, and Katara felt him slide out of her. Gently, he took one of her wrists and pulled her up to a sitting position, where he looked down between her legs before he looked back up at her.

"You might want to take care of that," he said, his voice rough. "Or it'll hurt tomorrow." Still in the haze of orgasm, it took Katara a minute to figure out what he meant, and then started upon realization.

"Oh, right," she said, shaking her head, and gathered her senses enough to pull some water from her pouch to heal the area. As she did so, she felt Zuko watching, his eyes raking her, even still, after the heat of sex. She kept her eyes on him as well, particularly interested in the way his shoulders rose and fell with his breathing.

When all traces of soreness masked by pleasure were gone, Katara folded her hands in her lap, unsure of what she was supposed to be doing now. Zuko didn't seem entirely sure of that either, so he started to gather all of his clothes. Doing the same, Katara hastened to cover herself. She noticed that there was no more talking coming from the campsite, and she looked up the hill to try and see if everyone had gone to bed, but she couldn't get a good look at it.

"Nobody heard us," Zuko said quietly, as if he knew what she was thinking. "We were completely out of ear shot."

"Good," Katara said, still looking up the hill. Her fingers touched fabric, but it wasn't the silk of her fire nation disguise, it was finer than any fabric she'd touched before. _Zuko's. _For some reason, the softness of the tunic surprised her. She reminded herself that Zuko was royalty, that Zuko was a prince, that these were a prince's clothes, a prince's clothes she had stripped and torn to the ground. Pausing, Katara clutched it in her hand, and wondered what it would be like to have it over her shoulders. That was something Suki always did, she noticed. Sokka would complain about how she was always wearing his tunics, how she wasn't leaving anything left for him to wear, but Katara knew it made Sokka happy anyway.

Zuko saw the way she was holding it.

"If you want," he said, his words barely reaching her through the thickness of the mist, "you can...hold onto that."

"Zuko..."

"Katara," his voice was serious. He tightened his pants around his waist and walked up to her. It surprised her to see that he was just a little red in the face. He rubbed the back of his neck with his hand, looking down at the ground. That was the thing about Zuko, Katara thought. Sometimes he seemed so sure of himself, but sometimes, it seemed as if he didn't know what to do about anything at all. "What happened just now, I don't..." he shook his head. "You should have stopped me."

"I didn't want to," Katara said, surprising herself.

Zuko slipped his arms through the sleeves of his shirt, and hesitated. "Yeah," he said. "Me either."

_So what does that mean?_

"I..." Now _she _was blushing, and she looked down at the ground. "I lied before. I was going to heal your scar. I wanted to. And if I got more spirit water...I probably still could."

"You don't have to do that," he said, sounding a little uncomfortable. "But thanks." Katara's hand closed around the tunic, the fabric soft against her palm. Zuko gave her a cautious look. "So are we...friends? Or what?" Katara had to giggle at the sudden awkwardness of his mannerisms. Friends, he'd said. _Friends don't do things like that._

She smiled a little, and moved forward so her fingers twisted through his, the strength of his heartbeat still overwhelming. "No," she said, taking the chance to move some hair away from his eyes. A familiar feeling flushed under fingers, the same as when she put her hand to his face in Ba Sing Se.

He shattered.

Katara couldn't bear to feel him shatter under her fingers, so she pulled him towards her and kissed him again, this time sweetly, this time to let him know that she was sorry, that she cared about him, that now he was hers and now she was his.

As she pulled away, she saw something strange on his face; something just shy of a smile. Zuko looked down at her. "I'll see you tomorrow?" she said, her voice quiet. Nodding, Zuko swallowed visibly.

"Yeah," he said. Katara kissed him once more, and this time, Zuko reached his arms around her and held her, but this time carefully, as if he that's all he wanted to do. Just hold her, and kiss her.

Katara didn't mind at all.

When they reached the campsite, Katara and Zuko exchanged one last look before they slipped into their respective tents.

She couldn't sleep.

Not at all.

* * *

A/N: Precious Zutara bbz

Thanks for reading! Most of my one shots like this are on my tumblr (zukoshotpants), including all of my ZUTARA MONTH pieces, so check that out if that's something you feel like you want to do! I love you guys all the way down to the bottom of my heart. Seriously.


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